Can an algebraic expression be made here.

Question

Okay, The price of a mandarin is 20 coins and the price of a guava is 15 coins, Find the number of mandarins and guavas that can be bought for 50 coins.

Now , can an alegebraic expression be used to solve this problem?

Suggest you ideas

Answer 1

From the given information it is clear that $$ 20x+15y=50$$ i.e $$4x+3y=10$$ since the no of unknown is greater than the no of equation the x and y has infinite no of solution.

But here it is important to notice that the x and y must be positive integer because both of them represents the count of the fruits.

So from above equation $$x=\frac{10-3y}{4}$$. Here y =2 because any other y won't give you a integer values for x.when y=2,x=1 which are the solution.

NOTE: If it is asked to find the no of x and y that can be bought within 50 coins ,then replace the equal sign with <.

REMARK: Here x denotes mandarins and y denotes guavas.